Lactuca Virosa, also known as "opium lettuce" or "wild lettuce" is a member of the... you guessed it... lettuce family.
Its effects are similar to that of opium poppies but much milder. It is a sedative and pain reliever, good for sore muscles, headaches, insomnia and to just relax a little.
From the leaves you can make tea, tinctures or lettuce cigarettes. When the leaves are picked or otherwise damaged, they release a white latex sort of resin. If you let it dry a little and scrape it up, it can be formed into a ball and smoked like opium.
Another way to extract from wild lettuce is to make a strong tincture from fresh, macerated leaves and then filter out the plant material and evaporate the alcohol. This leaves you with a potent extract which can be eaten or smoked.
It is easy to grow and the seeds have a high germination rate. These pictures are from today, wintertime. They have grown more over the winter then they did all summer, one of the greenest plants in the garden.
If you plan on consuming wild lettuce, do your research beforehand for it can cause undesirable side effects for some people. As with many plants, overconsumption of wild lettuce can result in toxicity.
